Tripura bypolls: If you support CPIM, Congress then you’re wasting your vote, Trinamool’s Abhishek Banerjee tells voters

Addressing a rally at Govind Ballabh Pant (GBP) Hospital, Chowmuhani, in the afternoon, Banerjee said the BJP’s decision to replace Biplab Kumar Deb as Chief Minister with Dr Manik Saha nine months ahead of the 2023 general assembly elections proves the government under BJP watch has “flopped”.

He said former Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, under the Left Front regime, had destroyed Tripura’s potential of development, while the BJP, on the other hand, added to the damage amidst high hopes of people who voted for a change.

Abhishek Banerjee at the rally in Tripura.

“Manik Saha has been made scapegoat. BJP’s claim that “double-engine government is the only solution” is more like an old wine in new bottle,” Banerjee said.

Accusing the saffron party of perpetrating political violence on opposition party activists, especially Trinamool Congress, the TMC leader said “duare goonda” (goons at doorstep) had stopped people from exercising their franchise. in the civic body polls held last year. He appealed to the voters to brave threats and intimidation to cast mandate in favour of the TMC in the June 23 by-elections for forming “duare sarkar” (government at doorstep).

Citing CMIE data, Banerjee said Tripura has been hit by the highest number of unemployment crisis in the country while the National Crimes Records Bureau (NCRB) data showed the state, under the BJP rule, has earned the dubious distinction of having the highest number of political violence cases in north-east India as well.

He asked the voters to consolidate opposition votes and said, “Don’t waste your vote by favouring the CPIM or the Congress. They have tried and it has become clear now that the TMC is the only party that can defeat the BJP. Voting for CPIM and Congress means wasting the vote”

Taking a dig at the BJP, Banerjee said the “double-engine government” is actually “double chor government”.

“The double-engine govt is ‘do numbari’ (fake). This is a double-chor sarkar. They want to loot Tripura and Delhi and since they are in power at both, neither the state police nor CBI would bother them, Banerjee said.

He accused the central government of politically misusing CBI, Enforcement Directorate (ED) to harass TMC leaders.

He asked them to cast votes without fear or favour.

TMC working to further BJP interests: Cong

Reacting to his comments, Tripura Congress coordination committee convener Gopal Chandra Roy said that the TMC is working to divide votes and make way for the BJP. He claimed the poll experience from Goa indicates that the TMC is working to further BJP interests.

TMC will find hard to save security deposit: CPIM

CPIM state secretary Jitendra Chaudhury said the TMC will have to fight hard to even save its security deposit in four seats.

“They are spending lakhs of money. They produced nothing in civic polls. Let’s see if they can save their security deposit this time,” he said.

A thief speaking about theft: BJP

BJP spokesperson Nabendu Bhattacharya said it is ridiculous that a thief is speaking about theft, in an oblique reference to the charges levelled against Banerjee of being involved in coal scam.

He also said TMC is fighting for third or fourth position in the by-polls and claimed the Bengal-based party would find it secured “handful of votes” after the by-election results.